A battery which comprises one or more galvanic battery cells serves as an electrochemical energy store and energy converter. During the discharging of the battery or of the respective battery cell, chemical energy stored in the battery is converted into electrical energy by way of an electrochemical redox reaction. Said electrical energy can be demanded by a user according to requirements.
In particular in hybrid and electric vehicles, in so-called battery packs, use is made of lithium-ion batteries or nickel-metal hydride batteries composed of a large number of electrochemical cells connected in series. It is conventionally the case here that a battery management system including a battery state detection means serves for safety monitoring and for ensuring as long a service life as possible.
In the case of lithium-ion storage technology, a multiplicity of individual battery cells are connected together to form an overall battery. Here, each individual cell has a housing for encasing the active battery cell components and the electrolyte. Only the electrical terminals or poles of the battery cell project out of the battery cell housing.
DE 690 22 892 T2 discloses a modular battery installation system which is composed of a plurality of individual module units. Such individual module units may be battery cells. These basic structural units can, on the basis of the modular principle, form a battery assembly of virtually any desired size.
DE 10 2007 052 375 A1 describes an energy store with more effective cooling and a method for the inexpensive production of said energy store, which method permits the production of an energy store to meet different customer demands. It is also the case in the embodiment described in DE 10 2007 052 375 A1 that a compact and inexpensive modular design is attained which can be used within the context of a modular system. It is possible here, too, for virtually any desired number of cells to be connected together to form modules.
Overall, therefore, it is known that battery cells designed for the same applications or of similar type can be combined to form modules. Here, however, no allowance is made for different types of battery cells or battery cells for different applications. For example, the batteries used in different types of electric vehicles are relatively different in terms of their structural configurations and their external dimensions. This results firstly from different power requirements and secondly from different available installation space conditions or arrangement positions. Furthermore, the different battery cells or batteries have terminals which differ from one another, such as for example different thread sizes. Said differences between the batteries or battery cells makes the transport, storage and also handling and mounting thereof relatively cumbersome. Furthermore, supply systems, positioning systems, fixing systems, maintenance systems, temperature control systems and handling systems must be of relatively complex design in order to allow them to be used for the different battery cell types or battery types.